As #MeToo gathers volume in the music industry, some DJs and artists are pulling the plug on accused-predator musicians and creepy-in-retrospect lyrics.

Musicians including Lady Gaga, Celine Dion and Chance the Rapper have aligned with the #MuteRKelly movement in recent weeks, for example, yanking their past collaborations with the R&B singer after Lifetime’s “Surviving R. Kelly” gave voice to many of his sexual assault accusers. Multiple radio stations have banned the artist, while some politicians in Australia this week reportedly opposed his entering the country after he tweeted and deleted an announcement of shows in Australia, New Zealand and Sri Lanka.

Kelly, who has denied the accusations through an attorney, faces decades-spanning allegations of sex with minors, physical and sexual abuse, and possession of child pornography; a 2017 BuzzFeed report alleged he was running an abusive sex cult, and police in Atlanta and Chicago are investigating him. The six-part docuseries, featuring interviews from people like John Legend and #MeToo founder Tarana Burke, drew an average of 2.1 million viewers.

Gaga apologized recently for not speaking out sooner. “I stand behind these women 1000%, believe them, know they are suffering and in pain, and feel strongly that their voices should be heard and taken seriously,” she said in a statement. “As a victim of sexual assault myself, I made both the song and video at a dark time in my life. ... The song is called ‘Do What U Want (With My Body)’, I think it’s clear how explicitly twisted my thinking was at the time.”

R. Kelly collaborators aren’t alone in revisiting past work through a 2019 lens: Nineties sensations The Spice Girls, a source told The Sun, are allegedly reassessing their back catalogue to root out non-PC lyrics and be “extra-cautious” in the #MeToo reckoning. Miley Cyrus last month put a feminist spin on the cloying Christmas classic “Santa Baby” (“Santa baby, I’d love to know my a-- won’t get grabbed / At work / By some ignorant jerk”). Some radio stations have put “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” interpreted by some as coercion and drugging rather than flirty repartee, on ice.

Fab Roc, a 29-year-old Harlem-based DJ who spins at corporate events and on internet radio shows, feels her platform comes with a certain responsibility. While she says she has played polarizing musicians like Michael Jackson and Chris Brown — Jackson was acquitted and Brown “has been held accountable,” she said — she won’t play artists like R. Kelly, Fabolous or the late rapper XXXTentacion, the latter two of whom have been accused of domestic abuse.

“If you’re a DJ, you’re responsible for pushing these musics and these artists,” she told Moneyish. “I think that DJs should be more conscious about the music they’re projecting.” A party or event should be a safe space for people to have fun and let go, she added: “If I’m playing music that could be potentially triggering to people, women, in the room, why would I do that?”

And Karen Hunter, host of “The Karen Hunter Show” on SiriusXM Urban View, has plucked R. Kelly, Michael Jackson and “any music that is overtly predatory in its lyrics” from her airwaves. (She also bleeps the N-word from songs, and will opt for tracks from “the inspiring Tupac” over “the ratchet Tupac.”)

“From radio station to radio station, programmer to programmer, I guess people have to check their souls,” she told Moneyish. “For me, it’s very black and white: I’m not funding pedophilia and I’m not funding sexual predators, so I don’t play the music — other people have to look in the mirror and figure out what they stand for.” Of course, she added, some folks beholden to a programmer or CEO may not be able to afford taking a stand. “If your paycheck is tied to these decisions, you’re going to make decisions based on your personal economy,” she said. “I don’t judge that either.”

While re-examining songs in a new light can be productive, said Jim Farber, a music critic who has covered the industry for more than three decades, “it does give me pause if there’s an attempt to censor songs or ban them.” “I hope it would be a real discussion between generations; an earnest discussion where people listen to each other,” he said. “And I hope that people would be open to learning about and understanding the context in which the songs were created … rather than just imposing a modern point of view.”

Farber also urged sensitivity to context while revisiting old rock songs like the Rolling Stones’ “Stray Cat Blues” (“I can see that you’re 15 years old / No, I don’t want your ID”). “A lot of these things were meant to be transgressive jokes … That was the point,” he told Moneyish. “That’s a song now that when people discuss, it makes them really nervous.”

“You can take lyrics that were potentially relevant or pertinent and made sense at that time, and kind of draw a different or new meaning in 2019,” added syndicated radio host Jayde Donovan, going on to reference “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” “You could interpret it that (as) ‘It’s actually f---ing cold outside,’ or you could interpret it that she’s being trapped and lured into the den of an abuser.” In the same vein, she added, movies like the 1980 spoof “Airplane!” were funny at the time, but could be read as offensive now.

SiriusXM personality Ashlee Ray, for her part, chastised the public for its short attention span to allegations of sexual abuse and inaction on addressing the broader issue. “Let’s talk about it next month when nobody’s talking about it,” she said. “Let’s find a way to address rape culture … and then change it so that little girls can grow up to be women without being violated.”

Either way, the country is experiencing “a special time” in history, Hunter said. “Whether we’re talking about race, whether we’re talking about #MeToo (or) Time’s Up, we’re in a particular time when we’re going to look back and we’re going to circle this period on a calendar,” she said. “And I just want to be on the right side of history.”

As it prompts much rehashing of past music, #MeToo may also be inspiring new subgenres. Farber, writing for the New York Times, recently identified a crop of young rock musicians revolting against “toxic masculinity.” And albums like Kesha’s “Rainbow,” released by the label of the man she says sexually assaulted her, reflect the survivor experience.

“Just like artists during the Vietnam War wrote protest songs, I think that you’ll start to hear over the course of the next few years songs reflecting (#MeToo),” said Dorothy Carvello, Atlantic Records’ first female A&R executive whose 2018 memoir, “Anything for a Hit,” exposed music-industry misogyny. “We’re in it. It’s not over. It’s just really beginning.”

This story was originally published Jan. 17, 2019, and has been updated.

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